August 20, 2012:From Stewart to Smithers

We woke up to clouds and a light rain and we knew it was time to head south. By eight thirty we were on the road and driving up the gentle slope to Merziadan Junction. Of all the roads this is the easiest as it follows an old railroad grade and so is a gentle pull.

Turning south we didn't get far before a car was stopped for a black bear. We actually had some traffic and so I couldn't stop but Renita, ever the resourceful one managed to snap a few images. Further south the Seven Sisters Mountians showed up and we knew we were near the end of the Cassier Highway.
As soon as we turned onto the Yellowhead Highway traffic picked up and two semis were on our rear end. I pulled over and let them pass but soon another convoy formed and so it went. The easy driving of our journey was over and so we fought traffic for the next seventy miles until we reached Smithers.

There we checked into an rv park and tried to get the fifth wheel in for service. No, luck as the one person here who works on rv's is injured and unable to crawl under so I am trying to locate the problem  myself. Bob the rv mechanic, did give me quite a few suggestions so I hope to locate the short in the brake line tomorrow. Clear skies

August 19, 2012:An Extra Day in Hyder and Stewart

When I mentioned to Renita that I would like to spend another day in Hyder and Stewart, she readily agreed. So of course we had to visit the shops, see the bears, and check out the Stewart museum.
Returning that evening, to Fish Creek, it didn't take long before the sow appeared. She waded down the creek, stopping to eat a dead salmon now and then, and even tried fishing. It was obvious she didn't know how to catch them and she only succeeded in chasing them around so she soon gave up and came onshore to eat leaves.
She stayed there quite a while, until Renita noticed the boar approaching far upstream. Huffing he hurried down the stream and she quickly took flight. She watched him fish for a while and then neared him, grabbing a dead salmon and running back into the forest.

The next day we decided to stop and shop a bit in the local stores, and if you visit no other shop, be sure to stop at the Boundary Store in Hyder. When you do, ask Caroline really nice, she will even play you a tune on the dulcimers she sells there. She also makes jewelry and we complimented her on the artistry she displays in wire wrapping.
Oh, and don't speed through Hyder as Caroline sits on her front porch and uses a radar gun to catch speeders. She doesn't ticket them but instead shoots them with her paintball gun and then calls the speeders company to report their reckless behavior.
Finally, Renita suggested we visit the local museum, and its really one of the places we should have visited first. Located in the old fire station on Stewart, the curator, Donna, will entertain you with stories and will offer to show you movies on the towns history and on bear behavior.

The bear behavior movie is one everyone should see. It shows the difference between defensive attacks and predatory ones and explains what you should and shouldn't do. It tells you when to play dead and when to fight back and when we return up north I believe I will buy some bear spray.
So we have had a good time in the area and I really recommend Hyder and Stewart to all who are heading down the Cassier. About the only thing we didn't do here is visit the Salmon Glacier but we didn't want to travel the bumpy four wheel drive road,(we talked with a person from Wyoming who blew two tires as he hit potholes at too high a rate a speed). May you be blessed with bears. Clear skies

August 17, 2012: Claws

August 17, 2012: Claws

It wasn’t just his size that amazed me, and that was impressive enough, nor was it the size of his head as he grabbed a chum salmon in his huge jaws and teeth. No what really impressed me and will always be in my memory is the size of his claws. While you could see them even as he walked but it was when he held a large chum salmon that the claws really became prominent.

It was the second time today that we were at the Fish Creek Boardwalk. Its located three miles out of Hyder, Alaska, and it is owned and maintained by the US Forest Service. It’s an elevated boardwalk that gives all a birdseye view of feeding Brown and Black Bears.

Arriving at a little after six am the first parking lot was full and so we had to park a little further down the road. The boardwalk had just opened and already there was a crowd of people hoping to catch a glimpse of bears feeding.

Below you could see chum, (dog), and humpies, (pink), salmon and it was the first time we have seen chum. They are quite a bit larger then pinks and they put on their own show as they jostled around the females. The larger males would push each other attempting to get a better position as the female turned sideways to dig her redd.

Many were talking, rather loudly I thought, and several were smoking cigarettes. One even lit up a pipe and I thought, do these people think they are in a zoo? It was obvious that they had never sat in a blind/stand and hunted or bird watched. Soon the road construction started and the road became busy as water trucks passed back and forth.

No bears showed up and so we drove back to camp, (we later learned that several bears showed up at 8:30 am). A couple with two kayaks told us of a lake where they had watched two grizzlies playing for over an hour. We drove up to Clements Lake but didn’t see any bears.

Returning to town we stopped at the visitor center and walked the boardwalk that extends out into the tidal marshes. After dinner we decided to head back to Fish Creek and hope to see a bear. Waiting patiently again I seethed as several women begin an animated and loud discussion in a different language. Finally they shut up and wandered away.

The forest service volunteer suddenly said bear and we watched as a large boar brown wadded out into the creek. It fished a bit before slowly wading up missing salmon. One ear was scarred from a previous fight and the same person said the bear was about eight hundred pound in size.

Cameras clicked and a crowd crammed around as he caught a salmon and gripped it with his teeth. Carrying it to a small rock island, it held the fish with its paws as it ate the skin and head of the fish. It seemed to have a taste for the skin as it left most of the carcass for the mew gulls.

Grabbing another salmon, he again would just eat the skin and maybe a bite or two of the rest. We watched it as it slowly fished the entire length of the boardwalk. The volunteers yelled at people to turn off their flash and several cars topped along the road.

One person even got out of his car and walked over to the edge of the road, having no idea how close he was to the huge set of teeth and claws. The Forest Service person yelled at the idiot to get back in your car!

The bear fed for an hour before going upstream and waded under a bridge before walking into the parking lot. Suddenly people begin pointing into the brush and a much smaller female brown appeared. She fed on some  leaves and then headed downstream, stopping to feed on left over fish.

Meanwhile the big boar returned and started wading downstream, smelling the air. The sow, picking up his scent, grabbed a salmon and ran into the brush. She knew better to tempt her fate! We continued to watch until the light became too low and so we returned to camp.

This is why we came to Alaska, to see bears feeding. It’s why we took the long and narrow Cassier Highway and it was worth the price of admission. I will never forget the claws and oh by the way children, monsters do exist. Clear skies

August 15, 2012: The Cassier Highway, Jade City, Dease Lake

August 15, 2012: The Cassier Highway, Jade City, Dease Lake

We left Watson Lake, (well not really Watson Lake but the junction of the Cassier and the Alaskan Highway), and headed south for Jade City and Hyder. Our goal for the first day was to make it to Dease Lake, after first stopping at Jade City and hopefully adding to our jade collection.

The highway itself started out as a narrow version of the Alaskan Highway. It was really pretty good and we averaged thirty five miles per hour. It actually got a little better and the scenery is simply spectacular as the Cassier Mountains rose in their entire splendor. The road itself follows the Dease River for quite a while and so we enjoyed the river and numerous quiet lakes.

Ruffled grouse all seemed to be feeding on gravel along the route and I thought we were going to catch a few in our grill but they all flushed as we neared. We got passed by everyone but that’s ok as who knows if we will ever travel this road again and so it’s our time to smell the roses.

Seventy miles south we neared Jade City and so we stopped to look for some free jade. The road cut was full of green rocks and we actually picked up some BC jade and some emerald snowflake jade rough. When we arrived at Jade City we saw huge boulders of jade and tables filled with sliced pieces and slabs.

We were both like little children as we posed besides the mammoth rocks. Emerald greens, mutton jade layers and black speckled greens were all in abundance. Walking to the tables we started to wet pieces and soon one of the miners arrived and sprayed the blocks with water allowing us to grade the jade ourselves.

I asked her where the highest grade was and she said that it all was purchased by Chinese buyers and sure enough a buyer was inside the store. WE did manage to find and purchase some rough that will make some beautiful cabochons including some that had inclusions of bright green chromium, chromium diopside I believe).

We put our purchases in the truck and went back just to see all of the beautiful rock. One of the miners showed us some stunning, what I would call a turtleback translucent jade, and he took our card promising us he would contact us when he had sliced more.

See they have an outcrop of the jade and they can’t blast it as it will fracture so they have to slice pieces in the mine and then bring them to the store to further slice, grade and sell. All of the miners did admire Renita’s Wyoming Jade pendant and complimented us on our work.

So we left Jade City and continued our drive. The road was really good for about forty miles and then the frost heaves and gravel breaks came out to play, Slowing down again I took it easy and so it took us about five hours to travel one hundred and fifty miles to Dease Lake and the private campground.

There are lots of places to boon dock along the road, but we wanted electricity for our freezers as they are filled with salmon. We did find diesel and filled up so we are good to go for Stewart and Hyder tomorrow. Clear skies

August 14th, 2012: Heading South to The Cassier Highway Junction

August 14^th, 2012: Heading South to The Cassier Highway Junction

The drive from Whitehorse to Watson Lake was pretty uneventful. It didn’t seem like it had been two months since we had passed the repaired road and headed north. Swan Lake, the Cassier Mountains, Liard River all came and passed in the rearview mirror. They all reminded us of their beauty. The wildlife seemed to stay hidden except for the ever present ravens. We did see a ruffled grouse as it pecked gravel from the side of the road.

I drove the first two hours and then Renita took over and except for a few frost heaves the road was about as good as you could hope for. We made excellent time and before we knew it we were crossing the flash flood breaks and got a chance to see the new built Bailey Bridge.

It wasn’t finished yet and so it was still one lane past the damaged road. Again we passed many places we would have liked to stop and explore, but our rig is just too big to turn around in some of the parking areas. No matter really as there is so much to see and do and so we just enjoyed the drive.

The truck worked fine and so our last stop of the day was at the visitor center in Watson Lake. There we got great help and information and the latest information about the construction areas on the Cassier Highway.

Its also the location of the signpost forest and as we left Renita noticed the sign that our friends Mike and Loretta had made in 2003. Tomorrow it’s off to Jade City and then we plan on camping about one hundred and fifty miles south near Deese lake. We will also fuel up there as the fuel places along the Cassier are few and far between. Clear skies

August 12th, 2012: Tok to Kluane Lake

August 12^th, 2012: Tok to Kluane Lake

Of all the roads we have driven so far the stretch from Tok to Kluane Lake is what I expected to find when traveling the Alaska Highway. It’s a stretch of almost constant frost heaves, punctuated by construction, and beautiful kettle lakes.

The border crossing was almost anticlimactic as we answered a few questions and were easily waved through. The border guard listened as I told her how I had my guns locked and the ammo saved and she renewed the permit, saving me twenty five more dollars.

The road itself was pretty good until we crossed the border and then the frost heaves were so bad that we had to slow to ten miles an hour. Washboard gravel and some big holes and we both thought that it was going to be a long day.

So we slowed down, averaging about thirty miles an hour and while it was still bad it was drivable Tiring form the constant strain of watching the road, Renita took over driving and of course she ended up driving the worst piece with a long construction section. Even this stretch was wide however, and so I got to enjoy the beauty of the kettle lakes, the subarctic tundra, and the stunted forests of drunken black spruce, (drunken forests are forests that are on unstable permafrost and point every which way).

Often trumpeter swans swam, serenely in still and dark clear pools of water, stained by the tannin a color of black tea. WE Crosse several large rivers, one of which, the White River, milepost warned, do not attempt to float!

Stained a dirty brown white, with volcanic ash, it was filled with snags and rapids and looked about as scary as the warning said, (Now we have carried a canoe with us on this trip and haven’t launched it yet, the rivers are too scary and we have been sightseeing too much to have time for simple pleasures).

The construction ended and the road improved. Renita sped us to forty five miles per hour and we reached Kluane Lake and Burwash Landing. We had hoped to meet our friends here but when drove to Cogdon Creek Campground, we found out it was closed due to habituated grizzlies. The mother and cubs had found garbage sacks left by careless campers and the campground was closed for the season.

So we drove a little further and stayed at Cottonwood Rv Park. It is one of the most beautiful little campgrounds, fronting middle Kluane Lake, that we have stayed in on this journey. Tomorrow we plan on heading to Whitehorse and then beyond to the Cassier Highway. That is if the truck continues to run as good as it did today. Clear skies

August 11th, 2012: Heading Back to Tok

We said our goodbyes to Valdez and headed back up the road. Of course it was the usual beautiful drive as we passed the waterfalls. The road sliced through the narrow canyon before heading up towards Thompson Pass.
Its a steep and long steady pull and our truck heated up, so I pulled into a turnout and we waited a bit for it to cool down. Now I had checked the fluid levels before leaving Valdez and all were fine but we had boiled some out and so I added more to the overflow tank.
Continuing on we reached the pass and all was well. Soon we were north of Glennallen at the Tok Cutoff. Now Milepost describes the Tok Cutoff road as quite good in some places, filled with potholes in others, and now and then bad spots where the road is trying to fall off into the drunken forests. To this I would have added, gravel washboardy stretches from hell, yeah that's a pretty good description.

It was a scenic drive and we passed a mountain that's a sixteener, yeah a sixteen thousand plus high volcano. Trumpeter swans occasionally dotted the tundra lakes and moose warnings were everywhere.
After about one hundred miles the low coolant light came on and so we pulled over and looked for rocks. I added a little more fluid but it didn't need much and so we drove the rest of the way to Tok,(I did find some nice rocks which I added to our load).

Arriving at Tok, we camped at the same spot we had when we came north and later went over for happy hour with Steve, Mike, and the two Sandys. They had just arrived from Fairbanks and were also heading south.
Trading stories about our travels since Salmon Camp, they talked of the ice truck road to the Arctic Circle,(be sure to read their blogs, they are both on the side bar of blogs we are following).
So tomorrow we cross back into Canada and head south. The original plan is to head to Hyder and the Cassier Highway, but it will all depend on whether or not the truck behaves. Its not that the Alaskan Highway is any better but there are the occasional large towns/cities along the way. Clear skies.

ps We are heading into Canada so we will only post when we have free wifi, in other words we are going off the grid,(as our daughter would say)

August 10th, 2012: Pinks, Seals, Bears and Otters, A Last full Day in Valdez

We got up early, five am, and headed back to the Daysville road. There we wanted to watch the bears and maybe even fish a little. Our main hope was to see the momma grizzly and her cubs but they never showed up. Instead we stopped for a bit and watched a pod of seals swimming toward the salmon at Solomons Gulch.
As we stood taking images an otter swam to shore and ran across the road disappearing into the thick brush. We wondered if it had a den. It sure had a purpose and it sure made a beeline. I took my pole out and cast into the schools of fish, hoping to catch a silver.

Before the single hook Mepps spinner even settled to the bottom I had a fish on. It was a foul hooked pink and it came off. Casting again I lost three fish before I got my lure back and each cast produced a fish. I eventually caught two fish for pictures, a male and female humpy,(pink salmon).
They weren't biting and all the fish were snagged in the dorsal fin so I released both fish. I wasn't setting the hook and still there were so many fish I couldn't not hook a fish. Stopping fishing we watched a bit and then headed back to the bears.

A black bear was feeding at the same place as yesterday and we watched it catch another salmon before it drug it into the thick brush. Waiting a bit a second bear appeared behind us and proceeded to catch and eat a dozen salmon.
The bear had a lot better catching rate then I had. Perhaps if I had used my teeth and I should have been dunking for salmon like the bear. It only ate the salmon eggs and left the rest of the carcass on shore. The bear sniffed a bit and then headed nearer us and soon we saw why as a larger black bear appeared and started fishing.
There were so many fish that both seemed content, at least for a while and I was reminded a bit of the combat fishing on the Kenai. Soon however the larger bear stood up and the smaller black hurried off into the woods. We had seen them catch and feed on at least thirty salmon in less then fifteen minutes.

Reluctantly we drove off and headed in search of more bears but we didn't see any more, just lots of bald eagles and gulls. Later in the day we took a short drive to the Mineral Creek Trail and hiked a bit, even though we could have drove in as we were soon passed by several trucks.

It was a nice hike and we did pick some blueberries, they weren't yet sweet, and passed a thicket of salmon berries that something had been feeding on,(hmm are those bear tracks?). Now one of the things while hiking here is to talk so that the bears will have a warning of your approach and its so weird to make noise as I have always been taught to be quiet.

We never did see  any bears and so we returned to the truck and made one last stop for the day, at the cannery area on the harbor. There the Peter Pan Cannery had a processing plant and even a dormitory for workers.

Stopping at the retail store we picked up some cans of Copper River Red salmon and some frozen razor clams. As dinner was now assured we headed home to clean up and prepare for the trip to Tok.
Valdez had turned out to be as beautiful as our friends had told us and the wildlife is definitely one of its blessings. Clear skies

August 9th, 2012: Earthquakes, Bears, and Valdez Museums

It was eerie to feel the fifth wheel shaking,(a 5.2 magnitude earthquake), and I knew it was an earthquake. We had just been at the old town site of Valdez, where part of the town had undergone liquefaction and slid into the sea taking thirty peoples lives.
There we had wandered the shoreline and looked at the wreckage and pilings, all that remained of the old town. A kayaker and seal were watching each other as the kayaker was checking his shrimp pots. We found some old pottery shards and an interesting rock, but little remained as the town moved to its new site after the state demanded the town relocate.  it was sitting on crack lined landslide material and fractures had opened up everywhere.

 Later a museum curator told us the old site was disappearing into the sea at the rate of an inch per year, and that seemed apropo to me as so many children had lost their lives there,(A cargo ship had just come in and the children had been on the dock to get candy, apples and oranges thrown by the crew).

It was early morning and I had woken Renita at five thirty as we were going bear watching. A sow brown bear and her four cubs had been hanging around and we hoped to see them. Driving out to Daysville we stopped and watched the spawning salmon but didn't see any bears till we headed back and spotted a black bear along a small stream. We watched as it waded the shallow water and picked two pinks from the water. It didn't eat them right away but then finished them both off quickly.
It disappeared into the brush and we left to give it a rest.

Later we went to the Old Town museum and then to one of the best museums we have seen, the Whitney Museum at the local community college. Its filled with the Whitney collection of Alaskan Art and artifacts. It explained the difference between the two but the lines seemed awful blurry.
Regardless the artistry was simply outstanding and again this was one of the best museums we have been in while in Alaska.
So it was a busy day with an earthquake, a bear, and two museums and that's why we are here in Alaska. That's why we are on the road, its not yet time to settle down and we still have so many places to see. Clear skies

August 8th, 2012: Pinks

You think of Alaska and you think of streams filled with salmon. All responding to the timeless urge to spawn. Bears lining the streams snatching fish and birds everywhere feeding off the remains, or even feeding on the live fish as they splash in shallow water.
So when we heard the pinks were in we had to drive the short drive to Soloman Gulch and the state run fish hatchery. There, every other year the pinks return to the hatchery and actually swim into the holding tanks where they are spawned by hand for the next generation of fish.

It was raining as we approaced, and the first thing we saw was a flashing message board of bears in the area. A sign warning that people should stay in their cars, and of course a sign being ignored. A tour bus had disgorged its load and people were everywhere walking along the rivers bank. It was low tide and the fish were struggling to force their way upstream.
There bears had already left, and so we got out in the rain, and joined the throng of people watching the pink salmon. There were literally tens of thousands of salmon jumping, swimming, and resting everywhere we looked.

Every resting pool was packed with fish and they forced each other out of the water. Salmon jumped the small dam and were set upon by gulls who only ate the eyes,(we have heard that fish head soup is really good but the eyes?).
The state spawns about two hundred and thirty million eggs, releasing the fry in March and so the 2014 pinks are starting their brief life right now. Pinks are ignored by Alaskans as a fish for kids to catch and not worth keeping or eating.

After all the reds are just finishing their run and the silvers should be coming in so why bother with the lowly pink/humpy. Yet when you go to a supermarket down south you see pink salmon for sale in the canned fish section and if you have had canned salmon you have probably eaten pinks.
Its not just here that the fish are spawning, every stream we have stopped at here has spawning pinks. However to see the mass of fish you have to visit Soloman Gulch. It makes the long drive worthwhile. Now if we can just see some of the bears! Clear skies

August 6-7th: From Seward to Valdez

After resting on the fifth, by resting I mean shopping at all the gift stores in Seward, we left for Valdez. Our first day’s goal was to drive to Palmer, where we would get our prescriptions refilled and fill up the larder before Valdez. The second day we planned on maybe driving all the way to Valdez, a long day for us at about two hundred and sixty miles of Alaskan roads.

The drive to Palmer was actually quite easy and again the low coolant light did not come on. Did we finally have all the air blocks filled up? Reaching Palmer we parked at an rv park next to the highway and then went to the Wal-Mart in Wasilla.

The next morning we took off and begin the long drive up the Glenn Highway. The road quickly narrowed and for twenty five miles was a winding narrow road with no guardrails and long drops to the river valley below. It was quite scenic, at least that’s what Renita told me as I concentrated on staying alive.

After the bad stretch the road improved and became one of the best stretches of Alaska Highways we have traveled. We enjoyed the glaciers and especially enjoyed Sheep Mountain where we glassed fifteen Dall sheep. All good things come to an end and so did the road quality as it became a myriad of frost heaves and expansion joints and I had to slow down. Still we made good time and made it to Glenallen by noon.

From there it was only one hundred and seventeen miles to Valdez, so we decided to continue on. The road was really good at first but it then deteoriated into really bad frost heaves. Many were so bad that the highway department had removed them entirely, leaving serious edges with dangerous drops. and large gravel 

We had to slow down to fifteen miles per hour and so it was speed up and then slows down for quite a while. We also had to wait for pilot cars in two places and so the drive stretched on and on. Reaching the last pass before Valdez we started down one of the steepest grades we have driven here so far.

Using the engine and transmission as a brake I overheated both but by stopping at a turn out we were able to get the temperatures back to normal operating ranges. The last few miles into Valdez were filled with beautiful waterfalls and glaciers and really was a spectacular drive.

It was a relief to finally arrive in Valdez and when we opened the door of the fifth wheel the pantry had bounced open and a mixture of rice, oatmeal, breadcrumbs and canned goods littered the floor. Tired we grouched a bit but finally got parked and cleaned up the mess.

It was by far the worst roads we have traveled on this trip, even worse than the Top of the World Highway. We have heard that the Alaskan Highway near Destruction Bay is even worse but we will check that out after we leave Alaska and head south. For now it’s concentrate on enjoying Valdez! Clear skies.

August 4th 2012: Birding on The Kenai Fiords National Park Cruise, Part Three

The ranger mentioned that the bald eagle looked as if it had just fed and I didn't pay much attention. After all it was a bald eagle and they are so common here. So it wasn't until it flew that I gave it a scan with my image stabilizing binoculars and that's when I saw it had a tufted puffin in its talons!
We were at Beehive Two,an aptly named island in the Chiswells. The islands are swarming with nesting birds, mostly black legged kittewakes, tufted puffins, glaucous gulls, horned puffins, and of course the occasional feeding bald eagle.

Along the waters edge a large flock of tufted puffins were resting between dives for bait fish. They swim better then they fly with short stubby wings, little bigger then a penguin. Their tufts are so prominent that they are easy to identify. The horned puffins are less so, although their feathery horn is obvious when they are standing near their nests.
I scanned the birds hopping for a glimpse of any scooter and of course we both missed it when the captain mentioned the flying white winged scooter. Common mures were floating serenely but we already had them.

So we didn't see any new birds, pelagic cormorants and not the red faced, but the other birds were a special treat and I know Renita's favorite is the horned puffin. For me it was seeing the bald eagle flying away with its prey and that made the one hundred and twenty mile cruise worth the time and money. Clear skies.